Published on July 15, 2019.
Through an essay by Matsuoka Toyohito published in the monthly magazine WiLL, this article introduces the reality that, while Japan’s nuclear power stagnated after the Fukushima Daiichi accident, China newly started operation of 25 reactors totaling 25.987 million kW. It examines China’s progress with advanced reactors such as the EPR and AP1000, the decline of Japan’s nuclear capacity, and the possibility that anti-nuclear reporting by The Asahi Shimbun and NHK has benefited China.

July 15, 2019.
Meanwhile, in China, after the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident, 25 reactors totaling 25.987 million kW newly began operation,
The following is from an essay titled “China’s Ambition to Dominate the World Through Nuclear Power,” published in this month’s issue of the monthly magazine WiLL by Matsuoka Toyohito, Director of Research Department I at the Japan Electric Power Information Center.
Readers who read this essay will realize that it is no exaggeration to say that the anti-nuclear-power reporting and anti-restart reporting by The Asahi Shimbun and NHK were also intended to benefit China.
Furthermore, when one considers that a considerable portion of the solar panels for the solar power generation they praise so highly are made in China or South Korea, their evil, or rather their anti-Japanese nature, reaches its extreme.
…This is all the more so because, as already stated, it is a power source that accounts for only 3 percent of Japan’s current total power generation of 11,000 kW.
Emphasis in the text other than the headings is mine.
Government-led promotion of nuclear power, diverse next-generation reactors, and substantial human-resource development…the gap between Japan and China only widens.
The Japan-China gap over nuclear power.
In June of this year, people involved in nuclear power around the world raised voices of surprise at the big news arriving one after another from China.
On June 6, Unit 1 of the Taishan Nuclear Power Plant in Guangdong Province, built by French nuclear giant Framatome, formerly Areva, Électricité de France, or EDF, and China General Nuclear Power Corporation, or CGN, reached criticality, in which nuclear fission in the reactor proceeds continuously, and began power transmission on the 29th of the same month.
The European Pressurized Reactor, or EPR, counted as one of the most advanced nuclear power plants, took a major step forward toward becoming the first in the world to begin commercial operation.
On the 21st of the same month, Unit 1 of the Sanmen Nuclear Power Plant in Zhejiang Province, under construction by Westinghouse of the United States, which had been under Toshiba, and the nuclear engineering company State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation, or SNPTC, together with China National Nuclear Corporation, or CNNC, also achieved first criticality and began power transmission on the 30th.
That plant uses the AP1000, for which Westinghouse has obtained final design approval from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and here, too, the world’s first entry into commercial operation came into view.
Furthermore, at Unit 1 of the Haiyang Nuclear Power Plant in Shandong Province, China’s second AP1000 construction project, fuel loading, in which fuel assemblies are placed into the reactor, was approved on the 21st, and first criticality is expected soon.
In all of these nuclear power plants, while projects in Europe and the United States have suffered major delays, China has taken the lead.
It can be said that this impressed upon the world the reality that only China’s nuclear-power development is steadily advancing.
For a long time, Japan was the world’s third-largest nuclear-power-generating country after the United States and France.
In 1998, the share of nuclear power in Japan’s total domestic power generation reached 36.4 percent, and even in 2010 it was 29.2 percent.
However, the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident caused by tsunami damage from the Great East Japan Earthquake in March 2011 had a major impact on the business environment surrounding nuclear power generation in Japan.
Not only the six reactors at Fukushima Daiichi, but also nuclear power plants throughout the country were expected to require enormous investment in order to comply with the new regulatory standards enacted in 2013, and decisions to decommission old reactors were made one after another for economic reasons such as investment recovery and future predictability.
As of the end of June 2018, including the nine reactors that had complied with the new regulatory standards and restarted, the number of reactors not yet decided for decommissioning and with the possibility of moving toward operation in the future was 39, with a total installed capacity of 38.566 million kW.
This was a sharp decrease of more than 10 million kW from the 54 reactors and 48.847 million kW in March 2011.
Meanwhile, in China, after the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident, 25 reactors totaling 25.987 million kW newly began operation, and the share of nuclear power in total power generation reached 3.9 percent in 2017.
As of the end of June 2018, there were 38 reactors in commercial operation in China, and installed capacity had reached 36.867 million kW, while commercial operation of the EPR and AP1000 introduced at the beginning is also expected.
In Japan, there has also been an announcement of plans to decommission the four reactors at Fukushima Daini Nuclear Power Plant, and it is certain that China will overtake Japan within this year and rise to become the world’s third-largest nuclear-power-generating country.